BYO Cookie Board

Overall, we’ve taken a pretty savory approach to the boards in this series so far. But, that changes today! I think we all deserve a little sweet treat, so let’s just get right to it.

Today, we’re making a BYO Cookie Board!

Here’s what I love the most about this board. It’s not just a snack. It’s not just a decoration for your food display. It’s an experience. This boards encourages special time with your loved ones while you build your ideal cookie. And, that’s what the holiday season is really all about, right?

Like the rest of our boards so far, we have a choice to make. We can make some homemade cookies. We can get some store bought cookies. Or, we can use a combination of them both. I opted for the latter. But, I still kind of cheated. I used a package mix for my home baked cookies, and nobody would ever know the difference. So, don’t be afraid to give yourself a little grace and take a shortcut or two.

Ultimately, we need 3 main components to this board: blank cookies to decorate, any kind of cookie for snacking to fuel us while we decorate, and all the icing and sprinkles we could ever wish for to help us decorate.

Let’s start with the blank cookies. I made some gingerbread cookies for the traditionalists and some ninjabread cookies for those that teeter on and off of Santa’s naughty list. If gingerbread cookies don’t do it for you, the other best option would be sugar cookies. Either way, you want a more stable cookie dough that can hold its shape so you can offer a variety of sizes and shapes for decorating.

For the snacking cookies, fill in the board with your favorite store bought favorites. I used mini iced gingerbread men to compliment the home baked gingerbread cookies. Then, I also filled in with some seasonal Oreos and mini chocolate chip cookies. Now, here’s another great thing about this board. There are no rules! If you want to decorate the snacking cookies too, do it! It will only make them better.

To decorate, we’re going to keep things nice and easy on ourselves and use a store bought canned white frosting. If you have major chocoholics in your circle, go for some chocolate icing too! To help your loved ones decorate their cookies, I recommend offering DIY piping bags to help with precision in icing placement. Just take a holiday themed sandwich bag, shove some icing in one of the bottom corners of the bag, snip the tip, and voila. A homemade piping bag! I’d also recommend getting some gel icing tubes in a few different colors to add some variety. I even found glitter gel icing at Walmart, so of course, that’s what I got.

We need icing to help glue our decorations to our cookies, but think outside the box a little bit when it comes to your embellishments. Offer a few different sprinkle options, for sure. But small candies, mini marshmallows, and mini candy canes also offer some unique decorative options, as well. So, fill in your board with fun little extras like these.

Alright, everyone! Now that we have our sweet tooth all warmed up, tomorrow’s complimentary board will warm us up from the inside out! You don’t want to miss it!

In the meantime, enjoy! And, let’s eat!